


Claustrophobia

by QuoteIntangible



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Claustrophobia, Hurt Felix, Panic Attacks, Tiny Bit of JYPE bashing, mentions of blood and injury, mentions of the boyz members
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-09
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 10:35:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29932146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuoteIntangible/pseuds/QuoteIntangible
Summary: It’s been a tough month for Stray Kids with everything that has gone on lately, but it’s about to get even worse when a prank against Felix goes terribly wrong.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 87





	Claustrophobia

**Disclaimer:** This story in no way, shape, or form reflects the attitudes of the people mentioned in the story. While this story is partially based on events that have happened or will happen, I have never met any of these people and wouldn’t know how they were feeling or how they would react. I made all of this up. It is entirely fiction. And I meant no disrespect whatsoever to Eric and Q from The Boyz, but I needed someone to be the culprits and I chose them. I actually know very little about The Boyz. I'm not 100% happy with the way this turned out, but then again, I never am 100% happy. I wrote it so I'm posting it. Started writing this before the thing happened (you know what I mean), but decided to include those events into this story. 

**

Felix looked at the cookies and brownies spread across the table in their dressing room and sighed dramatically. He had really gone overboard with the stress baking this time. Nothing calmed his nerves better before their Kingdom performances, though, like the precise, yet soothing, mixing of ingredients and the warm, gooey satisfaction when his confections came out of the oven just right. Their staff made a sizable dent in the hoard of sweets Felix brought with him, but they had not finished them like he hoped they would. He refused to throw the leftovers out and let it all go to waste, but he could not bring it back to the dorms with him either. Well, he _could_ , but then the other members would gorge themselves on the desserts, stress eating in the same way Felix had been stress baking these last few weeks because of how unfair and stressful everything had been. Even if Felix did not _make_ them eat it, he would undoubtedly get yelled at by everyone who was trying their hardest to stick to a diet and look their best for Kingdom and their upcoming comeback.

Felix piled all the leftovers into two containers, deciding the only thing to do was wander around to the other groups performing and see if he could get them to take everything off his hands.

“Where are you going?” Minho asked, stopping him at the door of their dressing room. Minho would deny it if asked, and no one had the guts to say it to his face, but Minho was definitely the mother hen of the group. While Chan had retreated into himself and his music this last awful month, and Felix had stress baked, Minho wanted everyone in his line of site at all times outside of the dorm. Between the death threats and the unwarranted hate (because bullying someone who was accused of bullying made _total_ sense), the members, for the most part, indulged Minho’s need to be near them and know where they were at all times. No one wanted to be alone right now, even if logically they knew they were safe inside of this building.

“Just going to see if I can foist the rest of these desserts onto The Boyz and Ateez. I don’t think anyone will appreciate if I bring all this back to the dorms.”

“Probably not.” Minho nodded distractedly and scanned the room again, before turning back to Felix, attempting to smile reassuringly. “Don’t be too long, okay? The cars will be here soon to pick us up.”

He hated how feeble Minho’s smile had become.

“Of course not, hyung,” he assured, slipping out the door.

To his surprise, Felix did not have to go far. Eric and Q from The Boyz were loitering at the end of the hallway to Stray Kid’s dressing room.

“What are you two doing?” Felix asked, balancing the containers as they wobbled precariously.

“Felix!” Eric startled and whipped around in surprise. He slung an arm around Felix’s shoulders. “Just the man we were looking for.”

“Why?” Felix suspiciously asked. He narrowed his eyes at Eric.

“Are those your famous brownies?” Q asked, slinging an arm around Felix’s other shoulder.

“Uh, yes,” Felix said, swinging his head around to look at Q instead. “I was hoping you two and the rest of your members could take these off my hands.”

“Sweet! We’d love to,” Eric said, sharing a Chesire grin with Q. “We’ll escort you to our dressing room.”

“O-okay,” Felix agreed, feeling strangely uneasy as Q and Eric practically carried him away with their arms linked across his back. He brushed the feeling aside. He had known Eric most of his Idol career, and he generally liked and trusted the other Idol as he assumed Eric generally liked and trusted him. Whatever nervousness he felt at this moment was merely residual from the stress of the last month, he told himself.

If Eric and Q had known that what they were about to do would have such catastrophic results, they would have kicked each other in the balls for even suggesting such an idea. However, as it was, they merely thought they were pulling off a fun prank that would lighten Stray Kid’s depressed and sullen mood instead of adding to it.

Though he thought it strange that their dressing room would be near the stage, Felix let himself be led by the two until Q pushed open a door to what was, indeed, not their dressing room, but a tiny janitorial closet. Dread rushed through him like water over a falls, from the tips of his hair to his toes that went as cold and numb as the rest of his body.

“No, no, no, you can’t,” he panicked, willing his frozen limbs to fight back.

Two sets of hands pushed him forward with enough force that his body hurtled over the threshold into the tiny prison, the door slamming shut behind him.

Complete and total darkness descended over him. The containers tumbled from his hands, cookies and brownies spilling across the concrete floor. For a moment, all he heard was the rush of blood in his ears and two fading giggles. For a moment, he stood frozen, heart pounding against his ribs hard enough to hurt and hands trembling so hard his whole body shook.

His chest felt tight, the oxygen thinning like someone had pushed him out of the airlock on a space ship instead of into a tiny room. He couldn’t breathe. The walls were too close, and the ceiling was too near, and was this room this small when they first shoved him into it?

His head felt funny. Last time something like this happened, it took three days for anyone to find him and he survived on a bottle of water he happened to have with him. Would anybody find him alive this time? Or was it only after he perished in this coffin sized room and his body began to rot and smell, the stench of deteriorating flesh leaking out into the hallway, that he would be located? Was there enough oxygen in this room? It didn’t feel like it. His pulse quickened, harsh pants forced in and out of his rapidly rising chest, but his head felt lightheaded and his muscles felt weak. Oh God, was he running out of oxygen already?

_No, no, no, no, no,_ his panicked thoughts chanted, having long ago drowned out any rational or logical thought. Through the darkness, he stumbled to the door and fumbled around for the handle. He twisted the handle, but the door remained unmoved. He twisted again and yanked with all his might. Still, nothing happened.

He had to get out here. He couldn’t go through that again. He _couldn’t …_

He pounded on the door, both fists rattling against the solid wooden door, begging to be let out, pleading for anyone to hear him and open the door.

Through the adrenaline and panic, Felix felt neither the pain in his hands and arms, nor the moment when his knuckles split open and blood began to run down his hands. The only thing he felt was the all-consuming terror and desperation to escape the same fate as his 13-year-old self.

*

“Good job today, everyone,” their manager cheerfully said, desperately trying to revive the somber group. “The cars are here to take you home for a well-deserved rest.”

“Yongbok isn’t back yet,” Minho worriedly said as he tapped his foot on the ground, uncrossing his arms and stuffing his hands into his pockets, only to cross his arms again a moment later.

Chan, who had been hunched over his computer with his headphones on (like he had been for most of the last month), snapped to attention. “Where did he go?”

“To see if he could get the other groups to take the leftover desserts.”

Hyunjin felt the anxiety flood the room, his own pulse quickening. The room felt hotter all of a sudden, sweat gathering on his brow.

The last few weeks had been more than rough for everyone. First some cosmetic doctor felt the need to pick apart every inch of Felix’s face and dared to accuse their sunshine of having plastic surgery. Even if Felix _had_ had plastic surgery, it was no one’s damn business. Then Han had a stupid mistake his idiot 13-year-old-self made dragged into the lime light. While Han did need to apologize and prove he had changed and that he knew what he did was a mistake, he did not deserve the death threats or hate over it. People are allowed to make mistakes, and they’re also allowed to change.

Hyunjin, himself, still woke up every morning with guilt clawing at his insides over the accusations made against himself. He deeply regretted the words he had said back then, but he wasn’t a bully. They all felt betrayed by JYPE who had proven the allegations false, but still felt the need to shove Hyunjin under a bus, going so far as to say they shouldn’t have hired him. All over a former classmate’s statement that had been grossly exaggerated.

All the hate and the poor management by JYPE brought the whole group down, tearing apart their happiness, their self-confidence and everything they’d worked so hard for these last few years despite Changbin and Chan’s defiance of their management and attempts to keep things as normal as possible. Had Chan really suffered seven years as a trainee for JYP, only for them to turn their backs when things got a little dicey? Chan deserved better. All of his members deserved better. Chan, especially, had taken hard all the stress of the last month, collecting it on his shoulders, the heavy weight darkening the bags under his eyes and dragging down his steps. The guilt in his gut dug in harder every time Hyunjin saw their leader after his hiatus.

To put it simply, they could not handle anything else right now, especially not something happening to their sunshine. If something awful happened to Felix because people were mad at Hyunjin, he would never forgive himself. Felix could be dramatic and naïve to a fault at times, but that’s only because he cared for everyone and loved with all his heart. Everyone who met Felix had a soft spot for him, even Minho and their managers. And as one of Chan’s main confidants, Felix was one of the few things keeping Chan, and consequently all of them, afloat through these difficult times.

They would be devasted if something happened to any of them, but especially to someone as pure as Felix.

“Let’s not panic yet. We have no reason to assume anything has happened,” Chan said.

“M-maybe he just got caught up talking to one of the other groups,” Seungmin suggested.

Changbin called Felix’s phone, which rang from counter where the baked goods had been. In an authoritative voice, Chan reminded them that there was no way an anti or sasaeng could have gotten into the building and there was no reason to panic yet. It was only after the seven of them split up and went around to all the other groups’ dressing room with no sign of Felix that true dread began to set it.

“Do we panic now?” Jisung asked when they all returned to their dressing room without Felix.

Minho shot him a reprimanding look. “Let’s split up and go look for him.”

In two groups of two and a group of three, they set off in different directions, hoping that Felix had gotten sidetracked by puppies or children, however unlikely, and that nothing serious had happened. None of them had any reason to believe anything bad had happened, it was just a feeling none of them could shake, a paranoia that clung to their auras, asking what else could possibly go wrong? What else was the world desperate to hurtle at them?

Hyunjin and Minho found themselves behind the main stage. It was only by chance that he saw it, a darkened, dead-end hallway behind the stage with only a handful of doors, one of which was held shut with a chair under the handle.

He shared a look with Minho, the same horror reflected on both their faces. They both knew about Felix’s extreme claustrophobia and the incident that caused it. Felix refused to even take elevators unless given no other choice, and he certainly would never go alone into any confined space. Hyunjin still remembered the time he had to talk a stressed, sleep-deprived Felix out of a panic attack when Hyunjin shut the bathroom door while Felix was showering, not knowing it had been purposefully left open. Felix had freaked, and it taken hours to calm him down. It was days before the haunted look left his eyes. If someone locked him into a room …

_There’s no reason to assume,_ he told himself, even as he and Minho broke into a sprint towards the room.

“The room is going to be empty and he’s going to be fine,” Minho insisted, but as they neared the door, the muffled sobs became apparent. Hyunjin knew, without a doubt, that nothing was going to be fine for a long time.

Minho kicked the chair away and yanked the door open in one fluid movement.

Huddled on the floor, knees drawn to his chest, Felix rocked back and forth on the floor, staring blankly ahead as he sobbed uncontrollably. His hands covered his ears as he rocked, and oh gods … his hands. They were purple and swollen, blood running from his knuckles down his hands, snaking around his wrists and arms to splash on the concrete floor below.

The breath stuck in his throat, refusing to exhale as his mind narrowed in on Felix’s hands and the disconcerting way the younger dancer rocked himself.

“Call Chan and our managers. Get them here now,” Minho said, jostling Hyunjin from his horrified stare. Minho slipped into the room and knelt down next to their distraught friend. He called Felix’s name and got no response in return, not even an acknowledgement of their presence.

It unnerved Hyunjin even more, who managed to pull out his phone with trembling hands. He dialed Chan first, and tried to keep the distress from his voice when he told Chan they found him, but he must have given something away for the phone went deathly silent on the other end. Hyunjin felt a tear splash onto the hand clutched tightly around his phone. “Behind the stage,” he managed to choke out before hanging up on Chan to call their managers.

Chan arrived first, footsteps heavy as he ran down the long stage alone. He spared a glance at Hyunjin, who could only point with a trembling hand towards the janitor’s closet, before sliding into the room and taking in the situation with wide eyes. “Oh, no. Oh, Felix,” he heard Chan’s heartbroken voice say.

“He’s not responding to anything I say,” Minho said, his next words drowned out by a stampede of feet rushing towards them. It seemed everyone knew something had happened, for it wasn’t just his managers and members that gathered around the room, but all of Ateez and the The Boyz, as well. Hyunjin let the managers go by, but stopped the others at the entrance of the hallway. No one else needed to see this.

Jeongin tried to sneak past him, but he grabbed the maknae in a tight hug. “Don’t,” he choked out the only word he could manage to say past his tight throat. The image of Felix’s swollen, bloody hands and vacant eyes burned into his mind. He didn’t want IN to see that. “Don’t, please.”

The others looked on in a mixture of confusion and fear at his ghostly appearance and terrified words.

“What … what happened?” Jisung asked, fearing the answer.

Hyunjin subconsciously tightened his grip on IN. “Someone locked him in the janitor’s closet.”

“No,” Seungmin whispered, the horror evident in his voice. With a sudden burst of anger, he tried to dash down the hallway, but Hyunjin blocked the younger man’s path with his body. He could tell the other groups were confused by their behavior, but he didn’t have the energy or the heart to explain.

A moment later, one of their managers hurried out of the closet and off in the direction of their dressing room. He returned a few minutes later with clean towels, the ones they used to wipe off sweat on stage.

“Did he … did he hurt himself?” Changbin quietly asked, earning gasps and looks of confusion from the other groups’ members.

Unable and unwilling to describe the state of Felix’s hands when Minho and he had found him, Hyunjin dipped his head and nodded. “He must have panicked and …” He left the outcome unspoken.

Over the shuffling and murmuring of the group gathered around, tense and waiting, Hyunjin heard the sounds of sobbing and an indecipherable jumble of words. _At least he’s responding now,_ he thought, but felt no relief from it.

Hyunjin suppressed his own tears as he listend to Felix’s cries. Gods, why did it have to be Felix? If it had been any one else in the group, they would have been upset and scared, but they liekely would not have panicked past of the point of rational thought and to the point of accidentally hurting themselves. It felt the universe wasn’t just throwing every obstacle it could find at them, but actively picking out their deepest, darkest fears and using those fears to destroy them.

“ _Don’t leave me here_ ,” they heard Felix’s broken voice beg just above the shuffling and murmuring of the gathered group. Jisung gasped and curled into Changbin when the older rapped placed an arm around him. Seungmin stepped closer, his hand grasping tightly onto Hyunjin’s shirt.

_“You’re okay, you’re safe. No one’s leaving you here,”_ Chan’s voice calmly responded. Whether or not he was actually getting through to Felix, though, he did not know.

“I don’t understand what happened. Is he okay?” Sangyeon, The Boyz’s leader, asked.

Before Hyunjin could respond, one of their managers exited the closet and ushered the group further away from the hallway entrance. “Give them some space, guys.”

Their second manager appeared at the door, Chan behind him. Their leader cradled Felix bridal style in his arms. Both of Felix’s hands had been covered in towels, but blood had already leaked through, staining the white towels a sickening red. Muffled whimpers drifted from where Felix had his face pressed into Chan’s shoulder. IN gasped and stiffened in his arms, the implications of what had happened very clear to every member of Stray Kids who had all seen, at some point, Felix freak out when confined in a small space.

Chan and their manager rushed by without a glance at the gathered group, but Minho stopped briefly to address them.

“Chan and I are going to the hospital with Felix. We don’t know how long we’re going to be there, so we think it’s best if everyone else goes back to the dorms for now,” Minho said.

“But—” IN weakly protested.

“He’s not in the best state of mind right now, IN-ah. We don’t want to overwhelm him.” Minho looked uncharacteristically brittle as he briefly patted IN’s arm. “Changbin, will you …?”

“I’ll make sure everyone gets home safe, hyung,” Changbin reassured, gently pushing Minho in the direction Chan had disappeared in.

“I’ll text as soon as we know anything,” Minho said and hurried off after them.

Hyunjin remembered their audience then, still curiously gathered around and murmuring softly to each other. A few of the others had gone to inspect the door to the janitor’s closet now that the room was empty. Barely visible in the low light were scratch marks in the splintered wood and splattered blood across the surface. Hyunjin swallowed thickly and looked away.

“F-Felix did this?” Kevin asked.

Hyunjin did not think Kevin sounded mocking or disrespectful, merely curious, perhaps? But it rubbed Jisung the wrong way, who snapped and said, “He’s claustrophobic, asshole.”

Seungmin grabbed Jisung and mumbled something into his ear that had Jisung turning red and mumbling ‘sorry.’

“C-claustrophobic?” Eric stammered, his skin almost as pale as Felix’s had been, eyes shining in the dim light. Next to him, Q had a hold so tight on Eric’s arm his knuckles had turned white. “We … I didn’t know he was claustrophobic.”

Changbin’s gaze narrowed on the two members of The Boyz at the same time IN sucked in a nosy breath. A sneaky suspicion slithered into Hyunjin’s chest.

“You didn’t …” Seungmin said.

“I’m so, so sorry,” Eric said, his voice pleading with the rest of the Stray Kids. “It was just a prank. It was meant to be funny.”

Changbin’s cold glare froze the air between them. “And I’m sure that’s exactly what those assholes who locked him in a supply closet and let him sit there for three days said.”

Eric and Q paled further, their eyes comically wide as both withered like salted slugs under Changbin’s intense stare.

Hyunjin couldn’t handle in anymore. Not the hate, not the death threats, nor the seemingly innocent prank that had gone so horribly wrong. He couldn’t handle the way Jisung’s breath hitched, nor how Jeongin trembled in his arms. He just wanted to go home so he could cry in peace and then prepare something nice for Felix to come home to.

“Changbin-hyung, please,” Hyunjin whispered, grasping the rapper’s shirt in a tight fist. “Please, let’s go home. We just want to go home.”

Changbin deflated like a forgotten, left-over party balloon, slowly and then all at once. He turned and gathered Seungmin and Jisung under an arm each. “I’m sorry. Let’s go home, guys.”

*

Chan slipped silently out of their dorm, hoping no one would notice.

It had been a very long and taxing night, after a very long and taxing month. He had switched to leader mode the moment Hyunjin had called about Felix, desperate to comfort yet another distraught member of his band. It felt like he had been doing that a lot lately, and it was starting to wear him down as he hadn’t had much time to decompress and take care of his own needs recently.

Despite his and Minho’s best efforts, Felix had been incoherent and inconsolable in the ambulance, not that either could blame him. They both knew why Felix feared small confined spaces, after all. He hadn’t gotten any better once at the hospital, though, and continued to flip out every time someone accidentally closed the curtain around his bed all the way or shut the door to the room he was later assigned. It got so bad, the doctors ended up giving Felix a light sedative and anxiety med so they could x-ray and stitch his swollen hands.

In his terror and panic to escape the closet, Felix had pounded on the door with his fists so hard he had torn the skin across his knuckles and broken at least one bone in his right hand and his right wrist, neither bone able to withstand the adrenaline induced battering. It was lucky Felix only broke the two bones on the same side, though both hands would be bruised, swollen and painful for quite some time.

Felix had been nearly catatonic since the doctors had sedated him. He responded to basic commands … and that was about it.

When Chan and Minho had walked into their dormitory at 4am, guiding a pliant Felix between them, Chan had been unsurprised to see the others gathered in the living room waiting for their arrival. Concerned, the others immediately crowded around Felix who stared at the floor blankly, not even lifting his head to acknowledge their presence. The others had wanted to surprise Felix with a nice welcome. Changbin ordered his favorite meal, Hyunjin had ordered his favorite ice cream, and Seungmin, IN and Jisung had gone to the local store to buy him a plushie.

However, none of them could get Felix to eat or verbally respond to anything they did or said. He did take the plushie, though, and that would have to be enough for now.

Chan urged everyone to get a good night’s rest, assuring that everything would be better when they awoke, and then laid restlessly next to a stiff and unresponsive Felix for hours.

Everything was not better.

When he woke up only a few hours after lying down, the bed was empty next to him. Chan found him in the living room staring vacantly at the tv playing some cartoon he didn’t recognize, Seungmin sitting next to with watery eyes and a hand on Felix’s thigh.

A nurse hired by JYP came around in the afternoon to help Felix bath and to rewrap his hands. Changbin had been a rock, sitting with Felix during the entire process of having his hands wrapped. If he was disturbed by the state of Felix’s hands, he did not let it show on his face. The doctors were thankfully able to 3D print Felix a removable cast to wear until the stitches came out so the bandages could be easily changed.

They had managed to get Felix to eat a little, at least, but for the majority of the day he had sat on the couch with various members staring blankly at the TV. The largest reaction they had gotten out of him was when Minho had wrapped an arm around his shoulders and Felix had curled into him like a cat. He was still sat like that now, cuddled close to Minho, Hyunjin on the other side running a hand through his hair, and IN at his feet.

Chan felt restless and antsy all day, extremely grateful that every member was there to support each other now as they had been the last month, but devastated that they had to be.

When he found himself repressing tears so he wouldn’t cry in front of one of the other members for the third time that day, Chan knew he needed to sneak out and find a quiet place to break down alone. That place ended up being the stairs down to the ground floor from their dormitory, which is as far as he made it before the tears started running down his cheeks.

Felix never tried to hide his claustrophobia, _couldn’t_ hide it since he broke out in tears the one time they had to take an elevator to management’s office pre-debut because there were no stairs that led to it. When particularly stressed, Felix would often fixate on the door of their bedroom, opting to sleep on the living room couch instead because he was terrified of being locked in their bedroom.

Though they had always known, it had taken Felix a while to confide the reason why. It had been middle school when the incident that caused his claustrophobia happened. Felix had joined the soccer team in 7th grade for the first time, and to the surprise of many, was actually quite good at it. This made some of the other kids jealous. On a Friday after practice, two of his teammates shoved him into the gym supply closet and locked him in.

No one found him … all weekend.

His parents filed a missing person’s report when he didn’t come home from school that day. The police talked to all of Felix’s teammate’s, including the two who had locked him in the room and knew exactly where he was. They had chosen to say nothing, letting Felix rot all weekend and his parents fear that their son had been kidnapped or killed.

It wasn’t until Monday that the gym teachers found him, hungry, dehydrated and hysterical, as unresponsive then as he was now. His parents had immediately sued the school and transferred Felix to a private school, and Felix had been in therapy because of the incident until he moved to Korea. No amount of therapy, however, could ever make Felix forget the three days he spent alone, locked in a tiny room in complete darkness, wondering if anyone was going to find him.

Chan took a deep breath and forced himself to stop crying. Felix had recovered then, and with their help and any other help he needed, he would recover with time now. But why did it have to happen? And of all the people it had to happen to, why did it have to be Felix?

He was still pondering these questions on the stairs when Sangyeon found him sometime later.

“What are you doing here?” Chan asked, not bothering to hide his surprise as he wiped the remnants of his tears away.

“Looking for you,” Sangyeon said, taking a seat next to Chan on the stairs. “And Felix. I wanted to apologize.”

“You are not the one who needs to apologize.”

“Don’t I?” Sangyeon asked. “I’m the leader. I should have known. I swear if I had known, I would have stopped them.”

Chan wanted to tell Sangyeon that it was okay, but it really wasn’t. While Chan couldn’t blame Eric and Q for what happened (they had no idea about Felix’s claustrophobia or the events that led to it), he was too angry and too upset with what happened to brush it off. “It’s not your fault,” Chan told the other leader. “You can’t predict everything every member is going to do all the time. They’re their own person.”

“I know, but I still feel bad about how things turned out. Eric and Q are devastated. They wanted to come, too, but they weren’t sure how they would be received.”

“Felix isn’t one to hold a grudge,” Chan said, knowing that if, _when_ Felix started to recover emotionally from Eric and Q’s ill-fated prank, he would likely be the first in line to forgive them. However, none of them had seen this side of Felix before, and had no idea what was going through his mind at the moment. “But he’s not exactly in any shape for visitors right now. I don’t even think he would know they were here. He went through something pretty traumatic as a kid, and he hasn’t been able to handle confined spaces since,” he felt the need to explain to the other leader.

“I’m so sorry. That’s awful,” Sangyeon said. “How-how are his hands?”

Chan sighed heavily and scrubbed a hand over his face. “Broken wrist, broken hand, and fifteen stitches. Doctor said it could have been a lot worse, though.”

Shock and horror splayed across a speechless Sangyeon’s face. Part of Chan wanted to tell him it wasn’t as bad as it sounded, and to not let Eric and Q stew in their guilt too much, as they hadn’t known Felix would lose it from being locked in a room. But that part of him that was angry at the world for throwing yet another seemingly impassable hurdle at them and wanted Eric and Q to feel bad remained silent.

“Is he going to be okay?”

“I… I don’t know,” Chan quietly admitted. He hoped that this wasn’t the straw that broke the camels back, that one of the members that Chan had handpicked himself hadn’t decided they’d had enough and left the group. He really didn’t know if Stray Kids would survive if someone quit or was forced to leave.

Sangyeon’s worried gaze felt heavy and uncomfortable on his skin. “All of us want to help any way we can. Everything is going to be okay.”

“I really hope so.”

-

Sangyeon left with a promise from Chan that he would call as soon as Felix was capable of handling visitors. He wasn’t sure how Eric and Q planned on apologizing, but he was certain it would be wild and over-the-top.

Chan snuck back into the dorm hoping no one noticed he’d been gone. However, he was caught sneaking back in by Changbin, the young rapper who had perhaps been _the_ strongest pillar in Stray Kids, besides himself, this last month giving hope to not only the other members, but to Stays, as well.

“Feel any better?” Changbin asked.

Of course, _of course,_ Changbin knew Chan had gone outside the dorm to cry alone. “I think so.”

“We’re all watching Frozen II in the living room if you want to join.”

Chan nearly huffed a laugh, but joined the others in the living room, choosing a spot next to Seungmin where he could see everyone clearly.

Felix, Hyunjin and Minho had not moved since Chan had left, the two older dancers still protecting and comforting the youngest of the dance line between them. Jisung had joined Innie on the floor, though, feeling the need to give the whole room a running commentary on the film they’d all seen half a dozen times already.

“Our favorite part is coming up!” Jisung exclaimed, bouncing like a squirrel hopping through the snow.

Chan braced himself the best he could before the rest of members, minus Felix, broke out in a horrible, off-key rendition of _Into the Unknown_.

“INTO THE UNKNOWN!” They all screeched at the same time, reminding Chan of why he never had to wonder why people called them loud. “INTO THE UNKNOOOWN!”

Despite everything, Chan found himself chuckling at their antics, and when he glanced at Felix, there was a small smile on his face, just a small quirk of his lips, but it was there. He realized then why one of the others had insisted on playing this movie. Things were nowhere near okay, and likely wouldn’t be for a long time, but this is why he chose these seven boys specifically, and this is why he loved all of them. Because they were there for each other, looked out for each other, cared for each other like family, and he believed that was enough to get them through anything.


End file.
